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Introduction 

JgDWARD EVERETT HALE was 
born in Boston, Massachusetts, 
April 3, 1822. It is almost literally true, 
as Doctor Hale himself says, that he was 
cradled in the sheets of a newspaper. 
Beginning when he was twelve years of 
age, many articles by the young boy 
appeared in the Boston Daily Adver- 
tiser , which his father had owned and 
edited since 1814. At sixteen he was 
reporter for the paper in the Massachu- 
setts Legislature, abridging the speeches 
and giving their tenor, and from that 
time to this has been a constant writer 


#4 Introduction 


for the journals of the day, — especially 
during 1854 and 1855 when he wrote 
leading articles for ten papers in New 
England and New York on the subject 
of the Kansas Emigration. He gradu- 
ated from Harvard in 1839 and during 
that and the following year was junior 
master at the Boston Latin School. In 
1842 he received his Master’s degree 
from Harvard and during the same year 
procured his license to preach. From 
October, 1844, to March, 1845, he was 
minister of the Unitarian Church in 
Washington, and in 1846 accepted a 
call to the Church of the Unity, Worces- 
ter, Massachusetts, where he remained 
ten years. He then became pastor of 
the South Congregational Church, Bos- 
ton, with which he is still connected 


Introduction 

as pastor emeritus, resigning active 
work in 1899. Since then by unanimous 
vote of the Senate of the United States 
he has been appointed their chaplain. 

As a publicist and patriot he did in- 
valuable service in the agitation against 
slavery. As director of the Freedmen’s 
Aid Society and official of the Sanitary 
Commission he found ample play for his 
organizing power and skill during the 
Civil War; but it was as a writer for the 
Atlantic , by articles full of hope and 
sane optimism, that Doctor Hale had 
his widest influence; and to the hope of 
quickening the National sentiment of 
the time “ The Man Without a Coun- 
try ” owes its birth. In the early sum- 
mer of 1861 an Ohio politician, Vallan- 


#t Introduction 


digham, made some public remark to 
the effect that he did not care to belong 
to a nation that compelled military serv- 
ice from any of its citizens. Ohio was 
then under military jurisdiction and 
General Burnside hearing of the speech 
sent Vallandigham to the Southerners 
on the other side of the Ohio River with 
his compliments. In this way Vallan- 
digham became a sort of martyr to the 
opposition and by them was nominated 
for governor. Doctor Hale approached 
Fields of the Atlantic and said that for a 
considerable time he had had the idea 
of the story of “ The Man Without a 
Country ” in his head, and stated that 
if the story could be brought out during 
the heat of the political campaign in 
Ohio it would probably do much good. 

viii 


Introduction 


For some reason, however, though in 
type, the story was not published until 
December, 1861, over two months after 
Vallandigham had met defeat, and con- 
sequently the primary motive of the 
story was lost. Doctor Hale had in- 
tended the article to appear as the work 
of Lieutenant Ingham, by whom most of 
the story is supposed to be told; but 
it happened that the index for the year 
appeared in the same number of the 
Atlantic. The index maker, recognizing 
Doctor Hale’s handwriting, had evi- 
dently thought the world at large should 
share his own knowledge, and therefore 
Doctor Hale’s name was inserted as 
author. Through a curious mischance 
the name chosen for the hero, Philip 

Nolan, proved to be that of an actual 
ix 


Introduction 


historical personage. To get local 
colour for his story Doctor Hak had 
gone over General Wilkinson’s Mem- 
oirs very carefully, and he found fre- 
quent mention made of a^Captain Nolan 
who had been sent on several expedi- 
tions into Texas. Doctor Hale was 
under the impression that Captain 
Nolan’s first name was Stephen, and, 
as Philip and Stephen were both evan- 
gelists in the Bible, he thought it quite 
probable if Stephen Nolan had had a 
brother this brother’s name might have 
been Philip. A few months after the 
publication of the story, on again look- 
ing into the Memoirs, Doctor Hale 
found to his astonishment that the real 
Nolan was Philip. Although in the 
North the name of Philip Nolan had 


Introduction 


been unheard of, in the South he was 
a character well known, and for this 
reason the story there excited more than 
usual interest. Besides Wilkinson’s 
Memoirs Doctor Hale had carefully 
gone over the accounts of Burr’s two 
trips down the Mississippi, as well as 
the proceedings of his trial at Rich- 
mond; and he also had carefully stud- 
ied the Reports of the Navy Depart- 
ment from 1798 to 1861. All of the 
ships mentioned throughout the story 
have actually belonged to the navy, but 
were not in active commission during 
the period of the story, and although the 
names of many of the officers are 
genuine, still none of them could have 
taken part in the happenings of the book. 

Notwithstanding all this the story was 
xi 


•SH Introduction 


received by the majority of people as 
actual fact. The sale of the book be- 
came enormous and there probably 
has been no story of the same length 
published in the English language which 
has done as much good as “ The Man 
Without a Country.” Its lesson of 
patriotism has been well taken to heart, 
and it was during the Spanish War 
that the story had its largest sales. 
Edward Everett Hale’s reputation could 
easily rest on this one book and by it 
alone he would stand as “ one of the 
greatest — some would say the greatest 
— of living Americans.” 


The Man Without 
a Country 

J SUPPOSE that very few casual 
readers of the “ New York Herald ” 
of August 13th * observed, in an ob- 
scure corner, among the “ Deaths,” the 
announcement, 

“Nolan. Died, on board U. S. Cor- 
vette Levant , Lat. 20 11' S., Long. 1310 W., 
on the nth of May, Philip Nolan.” 

I happened to observe it, because I 
was stranded at the old Mission-House 
in Mackinac, waiting for a Lake-Su- 
perior steamer which did not choose to 

* 1863, the year the story was printed. — Ed. 

5 


#4 The Man Without 


come, and I was devouring, to the very 
stubble, all the current literature I could 
get hold of, even down to the deaths 
and marriages in the “ Herald.” My 
memory for names and people is good, 
and the reader will see, as he goes on, 
that I had reason enough to remember 
Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of 
readers who would have paused at that 
announcement, if the officer of the 
Levant who reported it had chosen to 
make it thus : — “ Died, May i ith, The 
Man without a Country.” For it 
was as “ The Man without a Country ” 
that poor Philip Nolan had generally 
been known by the officers who had him 
in charge during some fifty years, as, 
indeed, by all the men who sailed under 

them. I dare say there is many a man 
6 


a Country Hr 


who has taken wine with him once a 
fortnight, in a three years’ cruise, who 
never knew that his name was “ Nolan,” 
or whether the poor wretch had any 
name at all. 

There can now be no possible harm 
in telling this poor creature’s story. 
Reason enough there has been till now, 
ever since Madison’s Administration 
went out in 1817, for very strict se- 
crecy, the secrecy of honor itself, 
among the gentlemen of the navy who 
have had Nolan in successive charge. 
And certainly it speaks well for the 
esprit de corps of the profession and the 
personal honor of its members, that to 
the press this man’s story has been 
wholly unknown, — and, I think, to the 
country at large also. I have reason to 
7 


*$H The Man Without 


think, from some investigations I made 
in the Naval Archives when I was at- 
tached to the Bureau of Construction, 
that every official report relating to 
him was burned when Ross burned the 
public buildings at Washington. One 
of the Tuckers, or possibly one of the 
Watsons, had Nolan in charge at the 
end of the war; and when, on returning 
from his cruise, he reported at Wash- 
ington to one of the Crowninshields, 
— who was in the Navy Department 
when he came home, — he found that 
the Department ignored the whole 
business. Whether they really knew 
nothing about it, or whether it was a 
“ Non mi ricordo,” determined on as a 
piece of policy, I do not know. But 

this I do know, that since 1817, and 
8 


a Country Hr 


possibly before, no naval officer has 
mentioned Nolan in his report of a 
cruise. 

But as I say, there is no need for 
secrecy any longer. And now the poor 
creature is dead, it seems to me worth 
while to tell a little of his story, by way 
of showing young Americans of to-day 
what it is to be 

A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY 

Philip Nolan was as fine a young 
officer as there was in the “ Legion of 
the West,” as the Western division of 
our army was then called. When 
Aaron Burr made his first dashing ex- 
pedition down to New Orleans in 1805, 
at Fort Massac, or somewhere above 
9 


The Man Without 


on the river, he met, as the Devil 
would have it, this gay, dashing, bright 
young fellow, at some dinner-party, 
I think. Burr marked him, talked to 
him, walked with him, took him a day 
or two’s voyage in his flat-boat, and, 
in short, fascinated him. For the next 
year barrack-life was very tame to 
poor Nolan. He occasionally availed 
of the permission the great man had 
given him to write to him. Long, high- 
worded, stilted letters the poor boy 
wrote and rewrote and copied. But 
never a line did he have in reply from 
the gay deceiver. The other boys in 
the garrison sneered at him, because 
he sacrificed in this unrequited affec- 
tion for a politician the time which they 

devoted to Monongahela, sledge, and 
io 


a Country Hr 


high-low-jack. Bourbon, euchre, and 
poker were still unknown. But one 
day Nolan had his revenge. This time 
Burr came down the river, not as an 
attorney seeking a place for his office, 
but as a disguised conqueror. He had 
defeated I know not how many dis- 
trict-attorneys ; he had dined at I know 
not how many public dinners; he had 
been heralded in I know not how many 
Weekly Arguses; and it was rumored 
that he had an army behind him and 
an empire before him. It was a great 
day — his arrival — to poor Nolan. 
Burr had not been at the fort an hour 
before he sent for him. That evening 
he asked Nolan to take him out in his 
skiff, to show him a canebrake or a 
cotton-wood tree, as he said, — really 

ii 


The Man Without 


to seduce him; and by the time the sail 
was over, Nolan was enlisted body and 
soul. From that time, though he did 
not yet know it, he lived as A Man 
without a Country. 

What Burr meant to do I know no 
more than you, dear reader. It is none 
of our business just now. Only, when 
the grand catastrophe came, and Jeffer- 
son and the House of Virginia of that 
day undertook to break on the wheel 
all the possible Clarences of the then 
House of York, by the great treason- 
trial at Richmond, some of the lesser 
fry in that distant Mississippi Valley, 
which was farther from us than Puget’s 
Sound is to-day, introduced the like 
novelty on their provincial stage, and, 

to while away the monotony of the 
12 


a Country Hr 


summer at Fort Adams, got up, for 
spectacles , a string of court martials on 
the officers there. One and another of 
the colonels and majors were tried, 
and, to fill out the list, little Nolan, 
against whom, Heaven knows, there 
was evidence enough, — that he was 
sick of the service, had been willing 
to be false to it, and would have obeyed 
any order to march anywhither with 
any one who would follow him, had 
the order only been signed, “ By com- 
mand of His Exc. A. Burr.” The 
courts dragged on. The big flies es- 
caped, — rightly for all I know. Nolan 
was proved guilty enough, as I say; 
yet you and I would never have heard 
of him, reader, but that, when the 
president of the court asked him at the 

13 


#4 The Man Without 

close, whether he wished to say any 
thing to show that he had always been 
faithful to the United States, he cried 
out, in a fit of frenzy: 

“ D — n the United States ! I wish 
I may never hear of the United States 
again ! ” 

I suppose he did not know how the 
words shocked old Colonel Morgan, 
who was holding the court. Half the 
officers who sat in it had served through 
the Revolution, and their lives, not to 
say their necks, had been risked for the 
very idea which he so cavalierly cursed 
in his madness. He, on his part, had 
grown up in the West of those days, in 
the midst of “ Spanish plot,” “ Orleans 
plot,” and all the rest. He had been 

educated on a plantation, where the 
14 


a Country Hr 

finest company was a Spanish officer 
or a French merchant from Orleans. 
His education, such as it was, had been 
perfected in commercial expeditions 
to Vera Cruz, and I think he told me 
his father once hired an Englishman 
to be a private tutor for a winter on the 
plantation. He had spent half his 
youth with an older brother, hunting 
horses in Texas; and, in a word, to 
him “ United States ” was scarcely a 
reality. Yet he had been fed by 
“ United States ” for all the years since 
he had been in the army. He had sworn 
on his faith as a Christian to be true to 
“ United States.” It was “ United 
States ” which gave him the uniform 
he wore, and the sword by his side. 
Nay, my poor Nolan, it was only be- 


The Man Without 


cause “ United States ” had picked you 
out first as one of her own confidential 
men of honor, that “ A. Burr ” cared 
for you a straw more than for the flat- 
boat men who sailed his ark for him. 
I do not excuse Nolan; I only explain 
to the reader why he damned his 
country, and wished he might never 
hear her name again. 

He never did hear her name but once 
again. From that moment, September 
23, 1807, till the day he died, May 11, 
1863, he never heard her name again. 
For that half century and more he was 
a man without a country. 

Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly 
shocked. If Nolan had compared 
George Washington to Benedict Ar- 
nold, or had cried, “ God save King 
16 


a Country 


George,” Morgan would not have felt 
worse. He called the court into his 
private room, and returned in fifteen 
minutes, with a face like a sheet, to 
say, — 

“ Prisoner, hear the sentence of the 
Court. The Court decides, subject to 
the approval of the President, that you 
never hear the name of the United 
States again.” 

Nolan laughed. But nobody else 
laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn, 
and the whole room was hushed dead 
as night for a minute. Even Nolan lost 
his swagger in a moment. Then Mor- 
gan added, — 

“ Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to 
Orleans in an armed boat, and deliver 
him to the naval commander there.” 
l 7 


^ The Man Without 


The marshal gave his orders, and the 
prisoner was taken out of court. 

“ Mr. Marshal,” continued old Mor- 
gan, “ see that no one mentions the 
United States to the prisoner. Mr. 
Marshal, make my respects to Lieuten- 
ant Mitchell at Orleans, and request 
him to order that no one shall mention 
the United States to the prisoner while 
he is on board ship. You will receive 
your written orders from the officer 
on duty here this evening. The court 
is adjourned without day.” 

I have always supposed that Colonel 
Morgan himself took the proceedings of 
the court to Washington City, and ex- 
plained them to Mr. Jefferson. Certain 
it is that the President approved them, 

— certain, that is, if I may believe the 
18 


a Country f# 

men who say they have seen his sig- 
nature. Before the Nautilus got round 
from New Orleans to the Northern 
Atlantic coast with the prisoner on 
board, the sentence had been ap- 
proved, and he was a man without a 
country. 

The plan then adopted was substan- 
tially the same which was necessarily 
followed ever after. Perhaps it was 
suggested by the necessity of sending 
him by water from Fort Adams and 
Orleans. The Secretary of the Navy 
— it must have been the first Crownin- 
shield, though he is a man I do not 
remember — was requested to put 
Nolan on board a Government vessel 
bound on a long cruise, and to direct 
that he should be only so far confined 

19 


The Man Without 


there as to make it certain that he never 
saw or heard of the country. We had 
few long cruises then, and the navy 
was very much out of favor; and as 
almost all of this story is traditional, 
as I have explained, I do not know 
certainly what his first cruise was. 
But the commander to whom he was 
intrusted — perhaps it was Tingey or 
Shaw, though I think it was one of the 
younger men, — we are all old enough 
now — regulated the etiquette and the 
precautions of the affair, and according 
to his scheme they were carried out, 
I suppose, till Nolan died. 

When I was second officer of the 
Intrepid, some thirty years after, I saw 
the original paper of instructions. I 

have been sorry ever since that I did 
20 


a Country He 

not copy the whole of it. It ran, how- 
ever, much in this way : — 

“ Washington” (with the date, which 
must have been late in 1807.) 

“ Sir, — You will receive from Lt. 
Neale the person of Philip Nolan, late 
a Lieutenant in the United States 
Army. 

“ This person on his trial by court 
martial expressed with an oath the wish 
that he might 4 never hear of the United 
States again.’ 

“ The Court sentenced him to have 
his wish fulfilled. 

“For the present, the execution of the 
order is intrusted by the President to 
this department. 

“ You will take the prisoner on board 
21 


The Man Without 


your ship, and keep him there with 
such precautions as shall prevent his 
escape. 

“ You will provide him with such 
quarters, rations, and clothing as would 
be proper for an officer of his late rank, 
if he were a passenger on your vessel 
on the business of his Govern- 
ment. 

“ The gentlemen on board will make 
any arrangements agreeable to them- 
selves regarding his society. He is to 
be exposed to no indignity of any kind, 
nor is he ever unnecessarily to be re- 
minded that he is a prisoner. 

“ But under no circumstances is he 
ever to hear of his country or to see any 
information regarding it; and you will 

specially caution all the officers under 
22 


a Country 


your command to take care, that, in 
the various indulgences which may be 
granted, this rule, in which his punish- 
ment is involved, shall not be broken. 

“ It is the intention of the Govern- 
ment that he shall never again see the 
country which he has disowned. Be- 
fore the end of your cruise you will 
receive orders which will give effect to 
this intention. 

“ Resp’y yours, 

“ W. Southard, for the 
Sec’y of the Navy.” 

If I had only preserved the whole of 
this paper, there would be no break in 
the beginning of my sketch of this story. 
For Captain Shaw, if it was he, handed 
it to his successor in the charge, and he 
2 3 


#1 The Man Without 


to his, and I suppose the commander 
of the Levant has it to-day as his au- 
thority for keeping this man in this 
mild custody. 

The rule adopted on board the ships 
on which I have met “ the man without 
a country,” was, I think, transmitted 
from the beginning. No mess liked to 
have him permanently, because his 
presence cut off all talk of home or of 
the prospect of return, of politics or 
letters, of peace or of war, — cut off 
more than half the talk men like to 
have at sea. But it was always thought 
too hard that he should never meet the 
rest of us, except to touch hats, and we 
finally sank into one system. He was 
not permitted to talk with the men, 

unless an officer was by. With officers 
24 


a Country Hr 


he had unrestrained intercourse, as far 
as they and he chose. But he grew shy, 
though he had favorites : I was one. 
Then the captain always asked him to 
dinner on Monday. Every mess in 
succession took up the invitation in its 
turn. According to the size of the ship 
you had him at your mess more or less 
often at dinner. His breakfast he ate 
in his own state-room, — he always had 
a state-room, — which was where a 
sentinel, or somebody on the watch, 
could see the door. And whatever else 
he ate or drank he ate or drank alone. 
Sometimes, when the marines or sailors 
had any special jollification, they were 
permitted to invite “ Plain-Buttons,” 
as they called him. Then Nolan was 
sent with some officer, and the men 
2 5 


#t The Man Without 


were forbidden to speak of home while 
he was there. I believe the theory was, 
that the sight of his punishment did 
them good. They called him “ Plain- 
Buttons,” because, while he always 
chose to wear a regulation army-uni- 
form, he was not permitted to wear the 
army-button, for the reason that it 
bore either the initials or the insignia 
of the country he had disowned. 

I remember, soon after I joined the 
navy, I was on shore with some of the 
older officers from our ship and from 
the Brandywine, which we had met at 
Alexandria. We had leave to make a 
party and go up to Cairo and the pyra- 
mids. As we jogged along (you went 
on donkeys then,) some of the gentle- 
men (we boys called them “ Dons,” 
26 


a Country Hr 

but the phrase was long since changed) 
fell to talking about Nolan, and some 
one told the system which was adopted 
from the first about his books and other 
reading. As he was almost never per- 
mitted to go on shore, even though the 
vessel lay in port for months, his time, 
at the best, hung heavy; and everybody 
was permitted to lend him books, if 
they were not published in America 
^nd made no allusion to it. These were 
common enough in the old days, when 
people in the other hemisphere talked 
of the United States as little as we do 
of Paraguay. He had almost all the 
foreign papers that came into the ship, 
sooner or later; only somebody must 
go over them first, and cut out any 

advertisement or stray paragraph that 
27 


The Man Without 


alluded to America. This was a little 
cruel sometimes, when the back of what 
was cut out might be as innocent as 
Hesiod. Right in the midst of one of 
Napoleon’s battles, or one of Canning’s 
speeches, poor Nolan would find a 
great hole, because on the back of the 
page of that paper there had been an 
advertisement of a packet for New 
York, or a scrap from the President’s 
message. I say this was the first time 
I ever heard of this plan, which after- 
wards I had enough, and more than 
enough, to do with. I remember it, 
because poor Phillips, who was of the 
party, as soon as the allusion to reading 
was made, told a story of something 
which happened at the Cape of Good 
Hope on Nolan’s first voyage; and it 


a Country Hr 


is the only thing I ever knew of that 
voyage. They had touched at the Cape, 
and had done the civil thing with the 
English Admiral and the fleet, and then, 
leaving for a long cruise up the Indian 
Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot 
of English books from an officer, which, 
in those days, as indeed in these, was 
quite a windfall. Among them, as 
the Devil would order, was the “ Lay 
of the Last Minstrel,” which they had 
all of them heard of, but which most 
of them had never seen. I think it 
could not have been published long. 
Well, nobody thought there could be 
any risk of anything national in that, 
though Phillips swore old Shaw had 
cut out the “ Tempest ” from Shake- 
speare before he let Nolan have it, be- 
29 


The Man Without 


cause he said “ the Bermudas ought 
to be ours, and, by Jove, should be one 
day.” So Nolan was permitted to join 
the circle one afternoon when a lot of 
them sat on deck smoking and reading 
aloud. People do not do such things 
so often now, but when I was young 
we got rid of a great deal of time so. 
Well, so it happened that in his turn 
Nolan took the book and read to the 
others; and he read very well, as I 
know. Nobody in the circle knew a 
line of the poem, only it was all magic 
and Border chivalry, and was ten thou- 
sand years ago. Poor Nolan read 
steadily through the fifth canto, stopped 
a minute and drank something, and 
then began, without a thought of what 
was coming, — 


30 


a Country Hr 


“ Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said,” — 

It seems impossible to us that anybody 
ever heard this for the first time; but 
all these fellows did then, and poor 
Nolan himself went on, still uncon- 
sciously or mechanically, — 

“ This is my own, my native land ! ” 

Then they all saw something was to 
pay; but he expected to get through, 
I suppose, turned a little pale, but 
plunged on, — 

“ Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned 
From wandering on a foreign strand? — 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well.” 

By this time the men were all beside 
themselves, wishing there was any way 

31 


#4 The Man Without 


to make him turn over two pages; but 
he had not quite presence of mind for 
that; he gagged a little, colored crim- 
son, and staggered on, — 

«* For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 

High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, 
Despite these titles, power, and pelf, 

The wretch, concentred all in self,” — 

and here the poor fellow choked, could 
not go on, but started up, swung the 
book into the sea, vanished into his 
state-room, “ and by Jove,” said 
Phillips, “ we did not see him for two 
months again. And I had to make up 
some beggarly story to that English 
surgeon why I did not return his Walter 
Scott to him.” 

That story shows about the time 
32 


a Country Hr 


when Nolan’s braggadocio must have 
broken down. At first, they said, he 
took a very high tone, considered his 
imprisonment a mere farce, affected to 
enjoy the voyage, and all that; but 
Phillips said that after he came out of 
his state-room he never was the same 
man again. He never read aloud again, 
unless it was the Bible or Shakespeare, 
or something else he was sure of. But 
it was not that merely. He never en- 
tered in with the other young men 
exactly as a companion again. He was 
always shy afterwards, when I knew 
him, — very seldom spoke unless he 
was spoken to, except to a very few 
friends. He lighted up occasionally, 
— I remember late in his life hearing 
him fairly eloquent on something which 
33 


The Man Without 


had been suggested to him by one of 
Flechier’s sermons, — but generally he 
had the nervous, tired look of a heart- 
wounded man. 

When Captain Shaw was coming 
home, — if, as I say, it was Shaw, — 
rather to the surprise of everybody 
they made one of the Windward Islands, 
and lay off and on for nearly a week. 
The boys said the officers were sick 
of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle- 
soup before they came home. Sut 
after several days the Warren came to 
the same rendezvous; they exchanged 
signals; she sent to Phillips and these 
home-ward bound men letters and 
papers, and told them she was outward 
bound, perhaps to the Mediterranean, 
and took poor Nolan and his traps on 
34 


a Country Hr 


the boat back to try his second cruise. 
He looked very blank when he was 
told to get ready to join her. He had 
known enough of the signs of the sky 
to know that till that moment he was 
going “ home. ,, But this was a dis- 
tinct evidence of something he had not 
thought of, perhaps, — that there was 
no going home for him, even to a prison. 
And this was the first of some twenty 
such transfers, which brought him 
sooner or later into half our best vessels, 
but which kept him all his life at least 
some hundred miles from the country 
he had hoped he might never hear of 
again. 

It may have been on that second 
cruise — it was once when he was up 
the Mediterranean, — that Mrs. Graff, 
35 


^ The Man Without 

the celebrated Southern beauty of those 
days, danced with him. They had been 
lying a long time in the Bay of Naples, 
and the officers were very intimate 
in the English fleet, and there had been 
great festivities, and our men thought 
they must give a great ball on board 
the ship. How they ever did it on board 
the Warren I am sure I do not know. 
Perhaps it was not the Warren, or per- 
haps ladies did not take up so much 
room as they do now. They wanted 
to use Nolan’s state-room for some- 
thing, and they hated to do it without 
asking him to the ball; so the captain 
said they might ask him, if they would 
be responsible that he did not talk 
with the wrong people, “ who would 
give him intelligence.” So the dance 
36 


a Country 

went on, the finest party that had ever 
been known, I dare say; for I never 
heard of a man-of-war ball that was 
not. For ladies they had the family of 
the American consul, one or two trav- 
ellers who had adventured so far, and 
a nice bevy of English girls and matrons, 
perhaps Lady Hamilton herself. 

Well, different officers relieved each 
other in standing and talking with 
Nolan in a friendly way, so as to be 
sure that nobody else spoke to him. 
The dancing went on with spirit, and 
after awhile even the fellows who took 
this honorary guard of Nolan ceased 
to fear any contre-temps. Only when 
some English lady — L&dy Hamilton, 
as I said, perhaps — called for a set 
of “ American dances,” an odd thing 
37 


The Man Without 


happened. Everybody then danced 
contra-dances. The black band, noth- 
ing loath, conferred as to what “ Amer- 
ican dances ” were, and started off 
with “ Virginia Reel,” which they fol- 
lowed with “ Money-Musk,” which, 
in its turn in those days, should have 
been followed by “ The Old Thirteen.” 
But just as Dick, the leader, tapped 
for his fiddles to begin, and bent for- 
ward, about to say, in true negro state, 
“ ‘ The Old Thirteen/ gentlemen and 
ladies ! ” as he had said, “ ‘ Virginny 
Reel/ if you please ! ” and “ 4 Money- 
Musk/ if you please ! ” the captain’s 
boy tapped him on the shoulder, whis- 
pered to him, and he did not announce 
the name of the dance; he merely 
bowed, began on the air, and they all 
38 


a Country Hr 


fell to, — the officers teaching the 
English girls the figure, but not telling 
them why it had no name. 

But that is not the story I started to 
tell. — As the dancing went on, Nolan 
and our fellows all got at ease, as I 
said, — so much so, that it seemed 
quite natural for him to bow to that 
splendid Mrs. GrafF, and say, — 

“ I hope you have not forgotten me, 
Miss Rutledge. Shall I have the honor 
of dancing ? ” 

He did it so quickly that Shubrick, 
who was by him, could not hinder him. 
She laughed, and said, — 

“ I am not Miss Rutledge any longer, 
Mr. Nolan; but I will dance all the 
same,” just nodded to Shubrick, as if 
to say he must leave Mr. Nolan to her, 
39 


The Man Without 


and led him off to the place where the 
dance was forming. 

Nolan thought he had got his chance. 
He had known her at Philadelphia, and 
at other places had met her, and this 
was a Godsend. You could not talk 
in contra-dances, as you do in cotillions, 
or even in the pauses of waltzing; but 
there were chances for tongues and 
sounds, as well as for eyes and blushes. 
He began with her travels, and Europe, 
and Vesuvius, and the French; and 
then, when they had worked down, 
and had that long talking-time at the 
bottom of the set, he said, boldly, — 
a little pale, she said, as she told me 
the story, years after, — 

“ And what do you hear from home, 
Mrs. Graff ? ” 


40 


a Country Hr 


And that splendid creature looked 
through him. Jove! how she must 
have looked through him ! “ Home ! ! 

Mr. Nolan ! ! ! I thought you were the 
man who never wanted to hear of home 
again ! ” — and she walked directly 
up the deck to her husband, and left 
poor Nolan alone, as he always was. 
— He did not dance again. 

I cannot give any history of him in 
order: nobody can now: and, indeed, 
I am not trying to. These are the 
traditions, which I sort out, as I believe 
them, from the myths which have been 
told about this man for forty years. 
The lies that have been told about him 
are legion. The fellows used to say 
he was the “Iron Mask”; and poor 
George Pons went to his grave in the 
4i 


The Man Without 


belief that this was the author of “ Ju- 
nius, who was being punished for his 
celebrated libel on Thomas Jefferson. 
Pons was not very strong in the histor- 
ical line. A happier story than either 
of these I have told is of the War. 
That came along soon after. I have 
heard this affair told in three or four 
ways, — and, indeed, it may have hap- 
pened more than once. But which 
ship it was on I cannot tell. However, 
in one, at least, of the great frigate- 
duels with the English, in which the 
navy was really baptized, it happened 
that a round shot from the enemy en- 
tered one of our ports square, and took 
right down the officer of the gun him- 
self, and almost every man of the gun's 
crew. Now you may say what you 


a Country Hr 


choose about courage, but that is not 
a nice thing to see. But, as the men 
who were not killed picked themselves 
up, and as they and the surgeon’s 
people were carrying off the bodies, 
there appeared Nolan, in his shirt- 
sleeves, with the rammer in his hand, 
and, just as if he had been the officer, 
told them off with authority, — who 
should go to the cockpit with the 
wounded men, who should stay with 
him, — perfectly cheery, and with that 
way which makes men feel sure all is 
right and is going to be right. And he 
finished loading the gun with his own 
hands, aimed it, and bade the men fire. 
And there he stayed, captain of that 
gun, keeping those fellows in spirits, 
till the enemy struck, — sitting on the 
43 


-►H The Man Without 


carriage while the gun was cooling, 
though he was exposed all the time, — 
showing them easier ways to handle 
heavy shot, — making the raw hands 
laugh at their own blunders, — and 
when the gun cooled again, getting it 
loaded and fired twice as often as any 
other gun on the ship. The captain 
walked forward, by way of encouraging 
the men, and Nolan touched his hat, and 
said, — 

“ I am showing them how we do this 
in the artillery, sir.” 

And this is the part of the story where 
all the legends agree: that the Com- 
modore said, — 

“ I see you do, and I thank you, Sir; 
and I shall never forget this day, Sir, 
and you never shall, Sir.” 

44 




a Country Hr 


And after the whole thing was over, 
and he had the Englishman’s sword, 
in the midst of the state and ceremony 
of the quarter-deck, he said, — 

“ Where is Mr. Nolan ? Ask Mr. 
Nolan to come here.” 

And when Nolan came, the captain 
said, — 

“ Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful 
to you to-day; you are one of us to-day; 
you will be named in the despatches.” 

And then the old man took off his 
own sword of ceremony, and gave it 
to Nolan, and made him put it on. 
The man told me this who saw it. 
Nolan cried like a baby, and well he 
might. He had not worn a sword 
since that infernal day at Fort Adams. 
But always afterwards, on occasions 
45 


The Man Without 


of ceremony, he wore that quaint old 
French sword of the Commodore’s. 

The captain did mention him in the 
despatches. It was always said he 
asked that he might be pardoned. He 
wrote a special letter to the Secretary 
of War. But nothing ever came of it. 
As I said, that was about the time when 
they began to ignore the whole trans- 
action at Washington, and when Nolan’s 
imprisonment began to carry itself 
on because there was nobody to stop 
it without any new orders from 
home. 

I have heard it said that he was with 
Porter when he took possession of the 
Nukahiwa Islands. Not this Porter, 
you know, but old Porter, his father, 
Essex Porter, — that is, the old Es- 
46 


a Country Hr 


sex Porter, not this Essex. As an 
artillery officer, who had seen service 
in the West, Nolan knew more about 
fortifications, embrasures, ravelins, 
stockades, and all that, than any of them 
did; and he worked with a right good 
will in fixing that battery all right. I 
have always thought it was a pity Porter 
did not leave him in command there 
with Gamble. That would have settled 
all the question about his punishment. 
We should have kept the islands, and 
at this moment we should have one 
station in the Pacific Ocean. Our 
French friends, too, when they wanted 
this little watering-place, would have 
found it was preoccupied. But Madi- 
son and the Virginians, of course, 
flung all that away. 


•£K The Man Without 


All that was near fifty years ago. If 
Nolan was thirty then, he must have 
been near eighty when he died. He 
looked sixty when he was forty. But 
he never seemed to me to change a hair 
afterwards. As I imagine his life, from 
what I have seen and heard of it, he 
must have been in every sea, and yet 
almost never on land. He must have 
known, in a formal way, more officers 
in our service than any man living 
knows. He told me once, with a grave 
smile, that no man in the world lived 
so methodical a life as he. “ You 
know the boys say I am the Iron Mask, 
and you know how busy he was.” He 
said it did not do for any one to try to 
read all the time, more than to do any- 
thing else all the time; but that he read 
48 


a Country Hr 


just five hours a day. “ Then,” he said, 
“ I keep up my note-books, writing in 
them at such and such hours from 
what I have been reading; and I include 
in these my scrap-books.” These were 
very curious indeed. He had six or 
eight, of different subjects. There was 
one of History, one of Natural Science, 
one which he called “ Odds and Ends.” 
But they were not merely books of 
extracts from newspapers. They had 
bits of plants and ribbons, shells tied 
on, and carved scraps of bone and wood, 
which he had taught the men to cut 
for him, and they were beautifully 
illustrated. He drew admirably. He 
had some of the funniest drawings 
there, and some of the most pathetic, 
that I have ever seen in my life. I 


The Man Without 


wonder who will have Nolan’s scrap- 
books. 

Well, he said his reading and his 
notes were his profession, and that they 
took five hours and two hours respect- 
ively of each day. “ Then,” said he, 
“ every man should have a diversion 
as well as a profession. My Natural 
History is my diversion.” That took 
two hours a day more. The men used 
to bring him birds and fish, but on a 
long cruise he had to satisfy himself 
with centipedes and cockroaches and 
such small game. He was the only 
naturalist I ev£r met who knew any- 
thing about the habits of the house-fly 
and the mosquito. All those people 
can tell you whether they are Lepidoptera 
of Steptopotera; but as for telling how 
5o 


a Country 

you can get rid of them, or how they 
get away from you when you strike 
them, — why, Linnaeus knew as little 
of that as John Foy the idiot did. 
These nine hours made Nolan’s regu- 
lar daily “ occupation.” The rest of 
the time he talked or walked. Till he 
grew very old, he went aloft a great 
deal. He always kept up his exercise; 
and I never heard that he was ill. If 
any other man was ill, he was the kind- 
est nurse in the world; and he knew 
more than half the surgeons do. Then 
if anybody was sick or died, or if the 
captain wanted him to on any other 
occasion, he was always ready to read 
prayers. I have remarked that he read 
beautifully. 

My own acquaintance with Philip 
5 1 


#4 The Man Without 


Nolan began six or eight years after 
the War, on my first voyage after I was 
appointed a midshipman. It was in 
the first days after our Slave-Trade 
treaty, while the Reigning House, which 
was still the House of Virginia, had 
still a sort of sentimentalism about the 
suppression of the horrors of the Middle 
Passage, and something was sometimes 
done that way. We were in the South 
Atlantic on that business. From the 
time I joined, I believe I thought Nolan 
was a sort of lay chaplain, — a chaplain 
with a blue coat. I never asked about 
him. Everything in the ship was strange 
to me. I knew it was green to ask 
questions, and I suppose I thought 
there was a “ Plain-Buttons ” on every 

ship. We had him to dine in our mess 
52 


a Country 

once a week, and the caution was given 
that on that day nothing was to be said 
about home. But if they had told us 
not to say anything about the planet 
Mars or the Book of Deuteronomy, I 
should not have asked why; there were 
a great many things which seemed to 
me to have as little reason. I first came 
to understand anything about “ the 
man without a country ” one day when 
we overhauled a dirty little schooner 
which had slaves on board. An officer 
was sent to take charge of her, and after 
a few minutes he sent back his boat 
to ask that some one might be sent him 
who could speak Portuguese. We were 
all looking over the rail when the mes- 
sage came, and we all wished we could 
interpret, when the captain asked who 
53 


The Man Without 


spoke Portuguese. But none of the 
officers did; and just as the captain 
was sending forward to ask if any of 
the people could, Nolan stepped out 
and said he should be glad to interpret, 
if the captain wished, as he understood 
the language. The captain thanked 
him, fitted out another boat with him, 
and in this boat it was my luck to go. 

When we got there, it was such a 
scene as you seldom see, and never want 
to. Nastiness beyond account, and 
chaos run loose in the midst of the nasti- 
ness. There were not a great many of 
the negroes; but by way of making 
what there were understand that they 
were free, Vaughan had had their hand- 
cuffs and ankle-cuffs knocked off, and, 
for convenience , sake, was putting them 
54 


a Country Hr 


upon the rascals of the schooner’s crew. 
The negroes were, most of them, out 
of the hold, and swarming all round the 
dirty deck, with a central throng sur- 
rounding Vaughan and addressing him 
in every dialect and patois of a dialect, 
from the Zulu click up to the Parisian 
of Beledeljereed. 

As we came on deck, Vaughan looked 
down from a hogshead, on which he had 
mounted in desperation, and said, — 

“ For God’s love, is there anybody 
who can make these wretches under- 
stand something ? The men gave them 
rum, and that did not quiet them. I 
knocked that big fellow down twice, 
and that did not soothe him. And then 
I talked Choctaw to all of them to- 
gether; and T 11 be hanged if they un- 
55 


The Man Without 


derstood that as well as they under- 
stood the English.” 

Nolan said he could speak Portu- 
guese, and one or two fine-looking 
Kroomen were dragged out, who, as 
it had been found already, had worked 
for the Portuguese on the coast at 
Fernando Po. 

“.Tell them they are free,” said 
Vaughan; “ and tell them that these 
rascals are to be hanged as soon as we 
can get rope enough.” 

Nolan “ put that into Spanish,”* — 

*The phrase is General Taylor’s. When 
Santa Ana brought up his immense army at 
Buena Vista, he sent a flag of truce to invite 
Taylor to surrender. “ Tell him to go to hell,” 
said Old Rough-and-Ready. “ Bliss, put that 
into Spanish.” “ Perfect Bliss,” as this accom- 
plished officer, too early lost, was called, inter- 
preted liberally, replying to the flag, in exqui- 
56 


a Country 


that is, he explained it in such Portu- 
guese as the Kroomen could under- 
stand, and they in turn to such of the 
negroes as could understand them. 
Then there was such a yell of delight, 
clinching of fists, leaping and dancing, 
kissing of Nolan’s feet, and a general 
rush made to the hogshead by way of 
spontaneous worship of Vaughan, as 
the deus ex machina of the occasion. 

“ Tell them,” said Vaughan, well 
pleased, “ that I will take them all to 
Cape Palmas.” 

This did not answer so well. Cape 
Palmas was practically as far from the 
homes of most of them as New Orleans 
site Castilian, “ Say to General Santa Ana, that, 
if he wants us, he must come and take us.” 
And this is the answer which has gone into 
history. 


57 


The Man Without 


or Rio Janeiro was; that is, they would 
be eternally separated from home there. 
And their interpreters, as we could un- 
derstand, instantly said, “Ah, non 
Palmas” and began to propose in- 
finite other expedients in most voluble 
language. Vaughan was rather dis- 
appointed at this result of his liberality, 
and asked Nolan eagerly what they 
said. The drops stood on poor Nolan’s 
white forehead, as he hushed the men 
down, and said, — 

“ He says, 4 Not Palmas.’ He says, 
‘ Take us home, take us to our own 
country, take us to our own house, take 
us to our own pickaninnies and our own 
women.’ He says he has an old father 
and mother, who will die, if they do 
not see him. And this one says he left 


a Country Hr 


his people all sick, and paddled down 
to Fernando to beg the white doctor to 
come and help them, and that these 
devils caught him in the bay just in 
sight of home, and that he has never 
seen anybody from home since then. 
And this one says,” choked out Nolan, 
“ that he has not heard a word from 
his home in six months, while he has 
been locked up in an infernal barra- 
coon.” 

Vaughan always said he grew gray 
himself while Nolan struggled through 
this interpretation. I, who did not 
understand anything of the passion in- 
volved in it, saw that the very elements 
were melting with fervent heat, and 
that something was to pay somewhere. 
Even the negroes themselves stopped 
59 


The Man Without 


howling as they saw Nolan’s agony, 
and Vaughan’s almost equal agony of 
sympathy. As quick as he could get 
words, he said, — 

“ Tell them yes, yes, yes; tell them 
they shall go to the Mountains of the 
Moon, if they will. If I sail the schooner 
through the Great White Desert, they 
shall go home ! ” 

And after some fashion Nolan said 
so. And then they all fell to kissing 
him again, and wanted to rub his nose 
with theirs. 

But he could not stand it long; and 
getting Vaughan to say he might go 
back, he beckoned me down into our 
boat. As we lay back in the stern- 
sheets and the men gave way, he said 

to me, — “Youngster, let that show 
60 


a Country Hr 


you what it is to be without a family, 
without a home, and without a country. 
And if you are ever tempted to say a 
word or to do a thing that shall put a 
bar between you and your family, your 
home, and your country, pray God 
in His mercy to take you that instant 
home to His own heaven. Stick by 
your family, boy; forget you have a 
self, while you do everything for them. 
Think of your home, boy; write and 
send, and talk about it. Let it be nearer 
and nearer to your thought, the farther 
you have to travel from it; and rush 
back to it, when you are free, as that 
poor black slave is doing now. And 
for your country, boy,” and the words 
rattled in his throat, “ and for that 
flag,” and he pointed to the ship, 


#4 The Man Without 


“ never dream a dream but of serving 
her as she bids you, though the service 
carry you through a thousand hells. 
No matter what happens to you, no 
matter who flatters you or who abuses 
you, never look at another flag, never 
let a night pass but you pray God to 
bless that flag. Remember, boy, that 
behind all these men you have to do 
with, behind officers, and government, 
and people even, there is the Country 
Herself, your Country, and that you 
belong to Her as you belong to your 
own mother. Stand by Her, boy, as 
you would stand by your mother, if 
those devils there had got hold of her 
to-day ! ” 

I was frightened to death by his calm, 

hard passion; but I blundered out that 
62 


a Country £# 


I would, by all that was holy, and that I 
had never thought of doing anything 
else. He hardly seemed to hear me; 
but he did, almost in a whisper, say, 
“ Oh, if anybody had said so to me 
when I was of your age ! ” 

I think it was this half-confidence of 
his, which I never abused, for I never 
told this story till now, which after- 
ward made us great friends. He was 
very kind to me. Often he sat up, or 
even got up, at night to walk the deck 
with me when it was my watch. He 
explained to me a great deal of my 
mathematics, and I owe to him my 
taste for mathematics. He lent me 
books, and helped me about my read- 
ing. He never alluded so directly to 
his story again; but from one and an- 

63 


The Man Without 


other officer I have learned, in thirty 
years, what I am telling. When we 
parted from him in St. Thomas harbor, 
at the end of our cruise, I was more 
sorry than I can tell. I was very glad 
to meet him again in 1830; and later 
in life, when I thought I had some in- 
fluence in Washington, I moved heaven 
and earth to have him discharged. 
But it was like getting a ghost out of 
prison. They pretended there was no 
such man, and never was such a man. 
They will say so at the Department 
now! Perhaps they do not know. It 
will not be the first thing in the service 
of which the Department appears to 
know nothing! 

There is a story that Nolan met Burr 

once on one of our vessels, when a party 
64 


a Country Hr 

of Americans came on board in the 
Mediterranean. But this I believe to 
be a lie; or rather, it is a myth, bentro- 
vato , involving a tremendous blowing-up 
with which he sunk Burr., — asking 
him how he liked to be " without a 
country.” But it is clear, from Burr’s 
life, that nothing of the sort could have 
happened; and I mention this only as 
an illustration of the stories which get 
a-going where there is the least mystery 
at bottom. 

So poor Philip Nolan had his wish 
fulfilled. I know but one fate more 
dreadful: it is the fate reserved for 
those men who shall have one day to 
exile themselves from their country be- 
cause they have attempted her ruin, and 
shall have at the same time to see the 
65 


«$H The Man Without 


prosperity and honour to which she 
rises when she has rid herself of them 
and their iniquities. The wish of poor 
Nolan, as we all learned to call him, 
not because his punishment was too 
great, but because his repentance was 
so clear, was precisely the wish of 
every Bragg and Beauregard who broke 
a soldier’s oath two years ago, and of 
every Maury and Barron who broke 
a sailor’s. I do not know how often 
they have repented. I do know that 
they have done all that in them lay that 
they might have no country, — that 
all the honors, associations, memories, 
and hopes which belong to “ country ” 
might be broken up into little shreds 
and distributed to the winds. I know, 

too, that their punishment, as they 
66 


a Country 

vegetate through what is left of life to 
them in wretched Boulognes and Leices- 
ter Squares, where they are destined 
to upbraid each other till they die, will 
have all the agony of Nolan’s, with the 
added pang that every one who sees 
them will see them to despise and to 
execrate them. They will have their 
wish, like him. 

For him, poor fellow, he repented of 
his folly, and then, like a man, sub- 
mitted to the fate he had asked for. 
He never intentionally added to the 
difficulty or delicacy of the charge of 
those who had him in hold. Accidents 
would happen; but they never hap- 
pened from his fault. Lieutenant 
Truxton told me that when Texas was 
annexed, there was a careful discussion 
67 


#4 The Man Without 


among the officers, whether they should 
get hold of Nolan’s handsome set of 
maps, and cut Texas out of it, — from 
the map of the world and the map of 
Mexico. The United States had been 
cut out when the atlas was bought for 
him. But it was voted, rightly enough, 
that to do this would be virtually to re- 
veal to him what had happened, or, 
as Harry Cole said, to make him think 
Old Burr had succeeded. So it was 
from no fault of Nolan’s that a great 
botch happened at my own table, when, 
for a short time, I was in command of 
the George Washington corvette, on the 
South American station We were 
lying in the La Plata, and some of the 
officers, who had been on shore, and 

had just joined again, were entertaining 
68 


a Country Hr 


us with accounts of their misadventures 
in riding the half-wild horses of Buenos 
Ayres. Nolan was at table, and was in 
an unusually bright and talkative mood. 
Some story of a tumble reminded him 
of an adventure of his own, when he was 
catching wild horses in Texas with his 
brother Stephen, at a time when he must 
have been quite a boy. He told the 
story with a good deal of spirit, — so 
much so, that the silence which often 
follows a good story hung over the table 
for an instant, to be broken by Nolan 
himself. For he asked, perfectly un- 
consciously, — 

“ Pray, what has become of Texas ? 
After the Mexicans got their independ- 
ence, I thought that province of Texas 

would come forward very fast. It is 
69 


The Man Without 


really one of the finest regions on earth ; 
it is the Italy of this continent. But 
I have not seen or heard a word of 
Texas for near twenty years.” 

There were two Texan officers at the 
table. The reason he had never heard 
of Texas was that Texas and her affairs 
had been painfully cut out of his news- 
papers since Austin began his settle- 
ments; so that, while he read of Hon- 
duras and Tamaulipas, and, till quite 
lately* of California, this virgin prov- 
ince, in which his brother had travelled 
so far, and, I believe, had died, had 
ceased to be to him. Waters and Will- 
iams, the two Texas men, looked grimly 
at each other, and tried not to laugh. 
Edward Morris had his attention at- 
tracted by the third link in the chain of 
70 


a Country Hr 

the captain’s chandelier. Watrous was 
seized with a convulsion of sneezing. 
Nolan himself saw that something was 
to pay, he did not know what. And I, 
as master of the feast, had to 
say,— 

“ Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. 
Have you seen Captain Back’s curious 
account of Sir Thomas Roe’s Wel- 
come ? ” 

After that cruise I never saw Nolan 
again. I wrote to him at least twice a 
year, for in that voyage we became even 
confidentially intimate; but he never 
wrote to me The other men tell me 
that in those fifteen years he aged very 
fast, as well he might indeed, but that 
he was still the same gentle, uncom- 
plaining, silent suflFerer that he ever was, 
7i 


The Man Without 


bearing as best he could his self-ap- 
pointed punishment, — rather less so- 
cial, perhaps, with new men whom he 
did not know, but more anxious, ap- 
parently, than ever to serve and be- 
friend and teach the boys, some of whom 
fairly seemed to worship him. And 
now it seems the dear old fellow is dead. 
He has found a home at last, and a 
country. 

Since writing this, and while consid- 
ering whether or no I would print it, 
as a warning to the young Nolans and 
Vallandighams and Tatnalls of to-day 
of what it is to throw away a country, 
I have received from Danforth, who is 
on board the Levant, a letter which 

gives an account of Nolan’s last hours. 

72 


a Country Hr 


It removes all my doubts about telling 
this story. 

To understand the first words of 
the letter, the non-professional reader 
should remember that after 1817 the 
position of every officer who had Nolan 
in charge was one of the greatest deli- 
cacy. The Government had failed to 
renew the order of 1807 regarding him. 
What was a man to do? Should he 
let him go ? What, then, if he were 
called to account by the Department 
for violating the order of 1807 ? Should 
he keep him ? What, then, if Nolan 
should be liberated some day, and 
should bring an action for false im- 
prisonment or kidnapping against every 
man who had had him in charge ? I 
urged and pressed this upon Southard, 
73 


^ The Man Without 


and I have reason to think that other 
officers did the same thing. But the 
Secretary always said, as they so often 
do at Washington, that there were 
no special orders to give, and that we 
must act on our own judgment. That 
means, “ If you succeed, you will be 
sustained; if you fail, you will be dis- 
avowed. Well, as Danforth says, all 
that is over now, though I do not know 
but I expose myself to a criminal prose- 
cution on the evidence of the very reve- 
lation I am making. Here is the letter : 

“ Levant, 2° 2' S. @ 13 1° W. 

“ Dear Fred, — I try to find heart and 
life to tell you that it is all over with 
dear old Nolan. I have been with him 

on this voyage more than I ever was, 
74 


a Country 


and I can understand wholly now the 
way in which you used to speak of the 
dear old fellow. I could see that he 
was not strong, but I had no idea the end 
was so near. The doctor had been 
watching him very carefully, and yes- 
terday morning came to me and told 
me that Nolan was not so well, and had 
not left his state-room, — a thing I 
never remember before. He had let 
the doctor come and see him as he lay 
there, — the first time the doctor had 
been in the state-room, — and he said 
he should like to see me. Oh, dear! do 
you remember the mysteries we boys 
used to invent about his room, in the 
old Intrepid days ? Well, I went in, 
and there, to be sure, the poor fellow 
lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly as 
75 


The Man Without 


he gave me his hand, but looking very 
frail. I could not help a glance round, 
which showed me what a little shrine 
he had made of the box he was lying in. 
The stars and stripes were triced up 
above and around a picture of Washing- 
ton, ‘and he had painted a majestic 
eagle, with lightnings blazing from his 
beak and his foot just clasping the 
whole globe, which his wings over- 
shadowed. The dear old boy saw my 
glance, and said, with a sad smile, 
‘ Here, you see, I have a country ! 
And then he pointed to the foot of his 
bed, where I had not seen before a great 
map of the United States, as he had 
drawn it from memory, and which he 
had there to look upon as he lay. 

Quaint, queer old names were on it, 
76 


a Country Hr 


in large letters : * Indiana Territory/ 
* Mississippi Territory/ and * Louisiana 
Territory/ as I suppose our fathers 
learned such things : but the old fellow 
had patched in Texas, too; he had 
carried his western boundary all the 
way to the Pacific, but on that shore he 
had defined nothing. 

“ * Oh, Danforth/ he said, ‘ I know 
I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely 
you will tell me something now ? — 
Stop ! stop ! Do not speak till I say 
what I am sure you know, that there 
is not in this ship, that there is not in 
America, — God bless her ! — a more 
loyal man than I. There cannot be a 
man who loves the old flag as I do, or 
prays for it as I do, or hopes for it as I 
do. There are thirty-four stars in it 
77 


tH The Man Without 


now, Danforth. I thank God for that, 
though I do not know what their names 
are. There has never been one taken 
away: I thank God for that. I know 
by that, that there has never been any 
successful Burr. Oh, Danforth, Dan- 
forth, ’ he sighed out, ‘ how like a 
wretched night’s dream a boy’s idea 
of personal fame or of separate sover- 
eignty seems, when one looks back on 
it after such a life as mine ! But tell me, 
— tell me something, — tell me every- 
thing, Danforth, before I die ! ’ 

“ Ingham, I swear to you that I felt 
like a monster that I had not told him 
everything before. Danger or no danger, 
delicacy or no delicacy, who was I that 
I should have been acting the tyrant 
all this time over this dear, sainted old 
78 


a Country Ha- 
inan, who had years ago expiated, in 
his whole manhood’s life, the madness 
of a boy’s treason ? ‘ Mr. Nolan/ said 
I, * I will tell you everything you ask 
about. Only, where shall I begin ? ’ 

“ Oh, the blessed smile that crept 
over his white face ! and he pressed 
my hand and said : ‘ God bless you ! ’ 
‘ Tell me their names/ he said, and 
he pointed to the stars on the flag. ‘ The 
last I know is Ohio. My father lived 
in Kentucky. But I have guessed 
Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi, 
— that was where Fort Adams is, — 
they make twenty. But where are your 
other fourteen ? You have not cut up 
any of the old ones, I hope ? ’ 

“ Well, that was not a bad text, and 
I told him the names, in as good order 
79 


rH The Man Without 


as I could, and he bade me take down 
his beautiful map and draw them in 
as I best could with my pencil. He 
was wild with delight about Texas, 
told me how his brother died there; he 
had marked a gold cross where he 
supposed his brother’s grave was; and 
he had guessed at Texas. Then he 
was delighted as he saw California and 
Oregon; — that, he said, he had sus- 
pected partly, because he had never 
been permitted to land on that shore, 
though the ships were there so much. 
4 And the men,’ said he, laughing, 
‘ brought off a good deal besides furs.* 
Then he went back — heavens how 
far! — to ask about the Chesapeake, 
and what was done to Barron for sur- 
rendering her to the Leopard, and 
80 


a Country 


whether Burr ever tried again, — and 
he ground his teeth with the only pas- 
sion he showed. But in a moment 
that was over, and he said, ‘ God for- 
give me, for I am sure I forgive him/ 
Then he asked about the old war, — 
told me the true story of his serving 
the gun the day we took the Java, — 
asked about dear old David Porter, as 
he called him. Then he settled down 
more quietly, and very happily, to 
hear me tell in an hour the history of 
fifty years. 

“ How I wished it had been some- 
body who knew something ! But I 
did as well as I could. I told him of 
the English war. I told him about 
Fulton and the steamboat beginning. 

I told him about old Scotland Jackson; 

8 ; 


•SH The Man Without 


told him all I could think about the 
Mississippi, and New Orleans, and 
Texas, and his own old Kentucky. 
And do you think he asked who was 
in command of the 4 Legion of the 
West ? * I told him it was a very gal- 
lant officer, named Grant, and that, by 
our last news, he was about to establish 
his headquarters at Vicksburg. Then, 
4 Where was Vicksburg ? * I worked 
that out on the map; it was about a 
hundred miles, more or less, above his 
old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort 
Adams must be a ruin now. 4 It must 
be at old Vicks’s plantation/ said he; 
4 well, that is a change ! 9 

44 1 tell you, Ingham, it was a hard 
thing to condense the history of half a 

century into that talk with a sick man. 

82 


a Country Hr 


And I do not now know what I told 
him, — of emigration, and the means 
of it, — of steamboats and railroads 
and telegraphs, — of inventions and 
books and literature, — of the colleges 
and West Point and the Naval School, 
— but with the queerest interruptions 
that ever you heard. You see it was 
Robinson Crusoe asking all the ac- 
cumulated questions of fifty-six years ! 

“ I remember he asked, all of a sud- 
den, who was President now; and 
when I told him, he asked if Old Abe 
was General Benjamin Lincoln’s son. 
He said he met old General Lincoln, 
when he was quite a boy himself, at 
some Indian treaty. I said no, that 
Old Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, 
but I could not tell him of what family; 

83 


The Man Without 


he had worked up from the ranks. 
‘ Good for him ! ’ cried Nolan ; ‘ I am 
glad of that. As I have brooded and 
wondered, I have thought our danger 
was in keeping up those regular suc- 
cessions in the first families.’ Then I 
got talking about my visit to Washing- 
ton. I told him of meeting the Oregon 
Congressman, Harding; I told him 
about the Smithsonian and the Ex- 
ploring Expedition; I told him about 
the Capitol, — and the statues for the 
pediment, — and Crawford’s Liberty, 
— and Greenough’s Washington : Ing- 
ham, I told him everything I could 
think of that would show the grandeur 
of his country and its prosperity; but 
I could not make up my mouth to tell 

him a word about this infernal Rebellion ! 

84 


a Country Hr 


** And he drank it in, and enjoyed it 
as I cannot tell you. He grew more 
and more silent, yet I never thought 
he was tired or faint. I gave him a 
glass of water, but he just wet his lips, 
and told me not to go away. Then he 
asked me to bring the Presbyterian 
‘ Book of Public Prayer,’ which lay 
there, and said, with a smile, that it 
would open at the right place, — and 
so it did. There was his double red 
mark down the page; and I knelt down 
and read, and he repeated with me, 
‘ For ourselves and our country, O 
gracious God, we thank Thee, that, 
notwithstanding our manifold trans- 
gressions of Thy holy laws, Thou hast 
continued to us Thy marvellous kind- 
ness,’ — and so to the end of that 


The Man - Without 

thanksgiving. Then he turned to the 
end of the same book, and I read the 
words more familiar to me : 4 Most 

heartily we beseech Thee, with Thy 
favor to behold and bless Thy servant, 
the President of the Unite d*Stafes, and 
all others in authority,’ — and the rest 
of the Episcopal collect. 4 Danforth,’ 
said he, 4 I have repeated those prayers 
night and morning, it is now fifty-five 
years/ And then he said he would go 
to sleep. He bent me down over him 
and kissed me, and he said, 4 Look in 
my Bible, Danforth, when I am gone.’ 
And I went away. 

44 But I had no thought it was the 
end. I thought he was tired and would 
sleep. I knew he was happy, and I 

wanted him to be alone. 

86 


a Country H? 


“ But in an hour when the doctor 
went in gently, he found Nolan had 
breathed his life away with a smile. 
He had something pressed close to his 
lips. It was his father's badge of the 
Order of Cincinnati. 

“ We looked in his Bible, and there 
was a slip of paper, at the place where 
he had marked the text, — 

“ ‘ They desire a country, even a 
heavenly : wherefore God is not 
ashamed to be called their God: for 
he hath prepared for them a city.' 

“ On this slip of paper he had writ- 
ten, — 

“ ‘ Bury me in the sea; it has been 
my home, and I love it. But will not 
some one set up a stone for my memory 

at Fort Adams or at Orleans that my 
87 


The Man Without a Country 


disgrace may not be more than I ought 
to bear ? Say on it, — 

“ ‘ In memory of 
Philip Nolan, 

Lieutenant in the Army of the United 
States . 

“ ‘ He loved his country as no other 
man has loved her; but no man 
deserved less at her hands/ ” 


66 7 


88 








Remarque Edition of 
Literary Masterpieces 
uniform with this 
volume 


1 Sonnets from the Portuguese 

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

2 Virginibus Puerisque 

By Robert Louis Stevenson. 

3 Friendship and Love 

By Ralph Waldo Emerson 

4 Heroism and Character 

By Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

5 Poor Richard’s Almanac 

By Benjamin Franklin. 

6 The School for Scandal 

By Sheridan. 

7 Destructions of Pompeii 

By Pliny and Bulwer. 

8 Sir Roger de Coverley Papers 

By Addison. 

9 Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius 

Selections. 

io Lord Chesterfield’s Letters 

Selections. 

n Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


43 

44 

45 

4 6 

47 

48 

49 

5 ° 

5 1 

5 2 

53 

54 

55 

56 

57 


Remarque Series 


L’Arlesienne 

By Alphonse Daudet. 

Manon Lescaut. Vol. I. 

By Abbe Prevost. 

Manon Lescaut. Vol. II. 

Paul and Virginia 

By Bernardin de St. Pierre. 

Peter Schlemihl 

By Adelbert von Chamisso. 

Werther 

By J. W. von Goethe. 

Undine 

By Friedrich, Baron de La Motte-Fou- 
que. 

Tales of a Wayside Inn 

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

King of the Golden River, The 
By John Ruskin. 

Love Letters of a Violinist 
By Eric Mackay. 

Sketches of Young Couples 
By Charles Dickens. 

Man Without a Country, The 
By Rev. Edward Everett Hale. 
Snow-Bound 

By John Greenleaf Whittier. 

Salome 

By Oscar Wilde. 

Ballad of Reading Gaol, The 
By Oscar Wilde. 

Other Titles in Preparation 









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